Guest columnist Roger Tavener reports from Sydney as expats watch with
disbelief as the Australian bushfires spread.

I thought the Brits were pre-occupied with the weather. In fact the whole world thinks there's no other major topic of conversation for the poor beleaguered folk left behind in a sodden UK.

So it was with some disbelief I eavesdropped, as an outsider, various Australian conversations and heard them talking about …the weather.

"Beautiful day," they'd say endlessly. People in the shops and on the street said it. Radio and TV presenters said it. They all said it.

It got on my nerves to be honest. Three years ago I'd left the UK for Sydney, where, to be frank, I expected the sun to shine all day, everyday. A formality. As certain as night following day. Or, because we are upside down, day following night.

This was Australia after all, and the weather, surely, wasn't an issue. Let alone worthy of a comment.

My take on the subject took a seismic shift when I headed along the highway south towards Melbourne where I was to collect a Winnebago and drive the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide at the height of summer.

It began to rain. Must be a freak of nature I mused. Stopping mid-way on the 900km schlep I realised I had never experienced rain like it. A tropical cloudburst that went on for at least 24 hours.

And it rained and rained for much of the seven days of the journey. I can hear it now, drumming incessantly on the roof of my travelling home.

No one was talking about 'beautiful days' now.

Heading back I had to outrun floods which travelled at 50 kph across millions of flat acres.

The following year horrifying rain of biblical proportions submerged Queensland and all but swept away state capital Brisbane.

Last summer was among the wettest ever catalogued. Winter was one of the coldest and darkest. It officially rains more in Sydney than London? What? Nobody told me that.

Now summer 2013 is already in the record books. Monday, January 7 was the hottest day in Australia's history. That's extreme.

The nation averaged over 40C. Astonishing for a country of similar size to the USA.

Wildfires have destroyed thousands of acres. A trail of destruction runs across the south east of the country and The Bureau of Meteorology warns it's going to get even hotter.

They have even had to create a new colour symbol, deep purple, to denote areas where temperatures will exceed 50C.

There are also regions of classified: 'Catastrophic fire risk' and there will be smoke on the water as the perfect firestorm - freakish high temperatures creating super-heated air whipped up by fierce winds- force the flames coastwards.

Nobody talks about 'beautiful days' right now. There's nothing beautiful about being fried alive. Instead it's climate change and the imposition of the universally detested carbon tax levied by a government kept in power by the tiny Green Party and a handful of radical independents.

For thousands of expats it has been far too hot in their kitchen and they got out of it, seeking instead the safety and air-conditioned comfort of public buildings in which to sit out the furnace outside.

Many exiled Britons are struggling with the high-value Oz dollar yielding a poor exchange for sterling and, in common with their Aussie neighbours, are struggling to meet their electricity bills, which have, in many cases, trebled in a couple of years.

It's not uncommon for average households to face quarterly bills in the thousands of dollars and many simply can't afford to run air conditioning units all day and all night.

A favourite refuge are the iconic RSL clubs (Returning Servicemen's Leagues, like grand Royal British Legions in the UK). Often palatial edifices build like mini Las Vegas casinos, these lavish entertainment complexes are normally empty in the middle of the afternoon.

But these days the big heat has meant the clubs have had their busiest pm trade as families bring their computers and books to settle down for a few hours and enjoy cost-free icy air and watch the breaking news fire bulletins on jumbo TV screens.

"Although we aren't directly at risk from the fires here, it's comforting to meet up with people and avoid the crippling cost of having to pay for non-stop air-conditioning at home," said David Rigg, a retired electrician from Bromley, Kent.

"I've been here for about 10 years now and although it often gets hot, this is really bad. We're not complaining though. We came largely for the climate, but we don't like the way energy prices have risen. Nobody does. It's all everybody talks about."

With further record-breaking temperatures predicted, this could just become a regular thing.

Personally I just want to be bid a G'Day, and a beautiful one at that, as soon as possible.